236 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



pulled away with might and main to secure the 

 dead ducks. 



Fifteen canvass-backs and three red-heads 

 were picked up, two of these, which were crip- 

 pled, being shot over, as the phrase goes, with 

 a small gun loaded with number eight. We 

 then rowed straight for the battery, in which 

 McCullough now insisted that we should take 

 our turn. There was no time to argue matters 

 with ducks on the fly ; so landing on one side of 

 the deck, while he came off at the other, we took 

 our place in some trepidation of spirit, years have 

 been intervened since we had drawn trigger on 

 wild fowl, if we except occasionally knocking 

 over a crippled sprig- tail or mallard on the snipe 

 grounds. The remembrance that our friend 

 from Philadelphia was a capital duck-shot, by 

 no means tended to allay this feeling, and it was 

 not until the sound of oars had died away on our 

 ears, and we felt ourselves, as it were, alone with 

 the decoys, which kept bobbing their heads as if 

 they were actually swallowing duck- weed with 

 the greatest possible gusto, and shifting their 

 bearings with inimitable gravity, that we re- 

 gained our wonted nerve, and made up our mind 

 to mischief. The next moment our ears were 

 saluted by the whistling of fowls' wings, and the 



